Illegal Plants
by CheveronChick
Summary: Oropher offers his son a compromise, perhaps the first of his entire life, in an effort to keep Thranduil safe and stop him from letting his curiosity be the end of him.


Oropher stormed down the halls his sons room, the one he had been confined to for nearly three days now. Theoretically. The guards sent to keep an eye on him had insisted and claimed that he hadn't moved from his spot, nor had anyone gone in other than Thranduil mother, Muinthel, but Oropher had learned long ago the word of the guards were not always as accurate as they wished them to be.

He barged into the room after only one brief wrapt warning on the door, purposefully fast enough that his son wouldn't be able to hide anything he shouldn't be doing.

Thranduil was sitting on the cushioned windowsill, looking out dejectedly with a book open and ignored on his lap. All else around him was completely silent, and Orpher could sense nobody else in the room. Thranduil turned somewhat cold and still angry eyes to his father, obviously still upset about his punishment, "Hello, Adar."

Still, something didn't sit quite right in Orophers guts. So to the seemingly empty room he said, "Goodbye, Luthien."

Nothing in the room moved, stirred or even breathed. Thranduil went to speak, "She isn't here, _you _banned everyone but you and Nana from coming to see me and placed guards at the bottom of my window, outside my door-"

"Goodbye, Luthien." Oropher said again, louder this time and far more strictly and forcibly.

This time several of the plants on top of one of the bookcases shifted, the end one being lighted tossed to Thranduil who caught it with a sigh. Luthien dropped down from the top of it with a guilty expression. She scurried for the door, head bent so she wouldn't have to make eye contact, "Goodbye, Uncle Oropher."

She closed the door after herself, and Oropher turned his eagle eyes back to his son, "I apologize, you were in the middle of lying to me?"

"Whatever." Thranduil said venomously, nearly cradling the plant he had caught in his lap and staring out the window in complete dismissal.

Oropher sighed, his promise to Muinthel still stinging on his tongue. His promise to pretend, for one day in his life that he did not have a temper. That he would shove it all away so that his compassion might not be clouded.

He walked across the room to the window, stopping just in front of it, "May I sit?" Thranduil looked up at him with angry eyes and so Oropher said the one word he knew he was guilty of constantly forgetting, "Please, Thranduil?"

Slowly, Thranduil retracted his long legs from nearly the entire seat, coming to sit cross legged with his arms crossed, turning his head back to the window. Oropher sat, back facing the window and looking intently around his son's room. It was not often he found himself in here for any length of time.

"What do you want?" Thranduil asked, clearly tired of his father's presence already.

Oropher had asked Muinthel once, why it seemed that she, Thingolf, Luthien, Melian and countless others could speak with Thranduil with no issues except for him. With a laugh and a kiss she had told him it was because all the people he listed were also good speaking with him first.

"I came to talk to you about what happened-"

"I'm fine, thanks." Thranduil interrupted, "I don't need another lecture. I have them memorized."

Oropher looked at each and every map pasted on the walls, all the different plants that covered every surface. The stack of books that littered bookshelves so thickly some had been banished to stacks on the floor. Strewn notes and papers everywhere in Thranduil's hasty notes. His son's endlessly curious mind oozing out of every surface.

Even now, there was ink smeared on both Thranduil's hands, and a few loose papers were sticking out of the pages of the book snapped shut next to him.

"I'm not here to lecture you," Oropher said simply, while he wondered how many of these strange plants Thranduil had actually collected himself rather than buying them at the market as he always claimed.

"Then I guess my first question stands, what do you want?"

Oropher folded his hands in his lap, "When I was still young on this earth and the only light that was in the sky was the stars, there was so much wondering in me that I thought I was going to burst with it. I had so many questions, and there were so many enticing and interesting things in every inch of the world around me."

Out of the corner of his eye he checked to see if Thranduil was paying more attention to him. At least this time, his son seemed to be staring at the plant in his lap, "Others like your mother and Uncle Thingol warned me not to be stupied, not to go chasing after every question and noise because there might not always be something good at the end of it."

"Obvously, I was stupid and stubborn and I didn't listen to them-"

"And let me guess something bad happened to you and this whole story proves why your right and I'm wrong." Thranduil snapped.

Oropher was silent for a few seconds, drowning in the memory of that time, "No. Nothing bad happened to me. I had found one thing or anywhere that fascinated me and I lost track of time, and your Uncle Thingol and a few others went looking. When I finally got back, your mother told me about what happened. She told me that out of five searchers, Thingol was the only one that had returned, even then, gravely wounded."

This time, Thranduil let the silence hang in the air.

"He did not wake for only Eru knows how long. And every minute of that time I could barely breathe with the guilt of what I had done. I could barely get my heart to beat with the thought of being the reason Thingol died, of all the others. That was the day I learned what fear was."

Thranduil's full attention rested on Oropher now, "So many years have passed since then, and I have weathered so many hurts and fears. We have a sun and a moon now, and the nights are filled with even more terrors and evils than they were before. The world around springing with hatred wherever it pleases."

Oropher had to stop and clear his throat and take a deep breath before he began, "Thranduil, when we went looking for you and could not find you anywhere. When you were gone all night, and halfway to the day, Thingol and I were preparing to go and search for you. And all your mother could think of was that night when so many didn't come back when they went for me."

Blue eyes, finally not angry but now more guilty flicked up to him, but before Thranduil could speak Oropher held up a gentle hand. "I am not saying this to guilt you, to make you feel bad about your actions or your character. I am telling you this so you can understand why sometimes I react the way I do, and try to set the rules that I do, and to tell you that I understand your side of it too."

Thranduil blinked at him and then said, "Can I talk now?"

Oropher snorted, "Yes, you can talk now."

"I'm sorry, Ada," He began with, more sincere than Oropher had heard in years, "I didn't mean to scare you, or Nana, or Uncle Thingol. But I've seen everything inside the city, I've done so many everything, and theres so many things I haven't seen or done out there! Its just, I'm just, things are just-"

Laughing, Oropher caught his son's hands as they emphasized his frustration to find words, "I know, my son, I know. I understand. Which is why I have come to make a compromise with you."

Thranduil's eyes lit like stars at the word he was fairly certain had never entered his father's vocabulary until this moment, "A compromise?"

"Yes, a compromise." For the first time since he arrived the two of them faced each other fully, "For two years you will be trained by the best, including both myself and your Uncle Thingol. In two years, if we're satisfied with your talent and progress, you may come and go from the city as you please during daylight and evening hours. In those two years, you will not go outside the city walls without a proper escort."

Thranduil was about to begin arguing again, and so Oropher began speaking before he could, "Which you may arrange up to twice a week, with any of the graduated warriors instead of my preapproved list."

Oropher held out his hand, "Deal?"

Thranduil scrutinized it closely, "You won't take it back?"

"No. Your mother would have my eyes, my liver, and my dignity in that order."

They shook on it, and Thranduil said, "Trust me Adar, you'll have _no _reason to find my talents unsatisfactory."

"I did not think that I would." The lapsed into compatible silence, unable to help himself Oropher asked, "So how many times have you snuck out, and how many of these fifty odd plants are from those times?"

Thranduil looked around his room with pursed lips, and then patted his father's hand, "Please don't make me lie to you again."

"Would I want to throw you out this window if I knew the honest answer?"

Thranduil shrugged, "It's a good possibility."

"Uh-huh. Just so you know, if you break this deal, your mother is going to do far worse to you than I ever could."

"Oh, I know." Thranduil assured, "I might be an annoying and arragont inconveince, but I'm not stupid."

Oropher laughed again, "You're not an inconvenience."

"The guards standing outside my window for the past four days would probably disagree with you on that one, Adar."

"A valid point."


End file.
